Fó shuō Wúliángshòu dàzhì tuóluóní 佛說無量壽大智陀羅尼
The Dhāraṇī of the Great Wisdom of Amitāyus
by 法賢 (譯)
About the work
A very brief single-juan dhāraṇī ascribed to 法賢 Fǎxián at the Sòng 譯經院. CANWWW restores the Sanskrit title as Ākāśagarbha-dhāraṇī — a curious mismatch with the Chinese 無量壽 (Amitāyus). The text is the bare vidyā without narrative frame.
Abstract
The text consists exclusively of the spell: homage to the Bhagavān Amitāyus (阿波哩彌多喻 Aparimitāyus), the jñāna-aviniścita-tejorāja (倪也那酥尾儞室唧多帝儒囉惹野 — the standard Sanskrit nominative of Aparimita-jñāna-suviniścita-tejo-rāja-tathāgata) — i.e. the Aparimita-āyur-jñāna Tathāgata. Tadyathā oṃ sarva-saṃskāra pari-śuddha-dharmate gagana-samudgate svabhāva-viśuddhe mahā-naya-pari-vāre svāhā.
This is the canonical Aparimitāyur-jñāna-hṛdaya-dhāraṇī — the heart-spell of the famous Aparimitāyur-jñāna-sūtra (= Wúliángshòu jīng = T20-1108 / T19-936 lineage and Tibetan Tshe-mdo). The Sòng translation here gives only the dhāraṇī itself, extracted from its scriptural matrix. The CANWWW Sanskrit attribution to Ākāśagarbha-dhāraṇī is an error; the correct identification is Aparimitāyur-jñāna-dhāraṇī. Recorded in the Dà-zhōng-xiángfú fǎbǎo lù; Nanjio N0913.
Translations and research
For the full Aparimitāyur-jñāna-sūtra tradition (its longer Tibetan-Chinese-Khotanese transmission, which this short Chinese spell-extract reflects), see:
- Walleser, Max. Aparimitāyur-jñāna-nāma-mahāyāna-sūtram, Heidelberg, 1916.
- Konow, Sten. The Aparimitāyuḥ Sūtra: The Old Khotanese Version Together with the Sanskrit Text and the Tibetan Translation. Oslo, 1932.
- Silk, Jonathan. “Aparimitāyur-Jñāna-related literature,” in J. A. Silk (ed.), Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism, vol. 1: Literature and Languages, Leiden: Brill, 2015.
Other points of interest
The two parallel Sòng-Institute spell-extracts T1382 / T1389 (KR6j0614 / this work) document the practice of distilling longer Mahāyāna sūtra-spells into stand-alone vidyās for ritual use. Both share the jātismara / extended-life ritual orbit but invoke different Tathāgatas (Akṣobhya vs. Aparimitāyus).